Mukesh Ambani famously said that Data is the new oil. Now with the government insisting that all data generated in India be stored locally, data centres could be the next big business opportunity. And the Adani Group, led by Gautam Adani is betting big on it.
According to a Business Line report, Adani Group may be entering the data centre business in line with the Central Government’s policy. The government of India has before it, a draft Personal Data Protection Bill which may become law soon. Large companies like Google and Amazon and many others will then be looking to setup their data centres here. Adani wants to capitalize on this opportunity and be ready with the real estate with land and buildings that could be developed into ‘data parks’
The proposed plan of his group is reportedly that the location of the data park could be somewhere in the south of India. The investment by the Adani Group could be in the region of about Rs 70,000 crore.
Adani and his group have had a meteoric rise in a relatively short span of time. He has stayed close to the government-initiated polices in terms of making investments where the government in power has showed inclination to develop. Whether it is the gas projects or infrastructure building or mining or now setting up data parks, Adani want to reach there before others do.
The setting up of data parks will, however, see competition from other players too. Some of the leading vested interests in the business like Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, which has fully endorsed the government’s view that the personal date must be stored in India. His company is going big on the digital space and would soon be taking on the US biggies Walmart and Amazon in the ecommerce business. Companies like Amazon have not been very happy with this directive to locate data hosting servers within India. There are additional conditions attached by RBI, in cases where digital payments companies are storing data. The concerned entities have to setup an office and post a nodal officer.